If you want to be a comic book artist be like a pro and use comic boards, especially if you want to sell your work.
I have had the pleasure of working and creating comics for a lot of years and I will never forget walking into the comic store and seeing a set of Blue Line Pro comic boards and thinking, what the heck are these? I researched it an was very poor at the time, but the next day bought all they had, why?
Have you ever looked at a comic page and went, damn look at the detail! This is because they don’t draw on 8×11 or A4 paper they draw on a type of bristol paper called comic boards at 11×17, which has the defined lines to guide the artist to proper North American art size of 10×15 . The art is drawn at this large size then shrunk down to fit a comic page, giving it great detail. I would never use any other type of paper for storyboards.
Comic art boards are important because….
- They are way more durable, meant to absorb ink and deal with erasing better.
- It takes a bit to get use too, but you will create better more detailed art.
- The boards have no printable blue lines to guide you. I have dealt with a ton of artist and when I pay for work and get art not fitting correctly it cost me time to fix, and gives you a bad reputation.
- When you present your art it will give it more of a wow factor and fans like to buy artist boards.
- You can use the same boards to create 11×17 art for your posters or cover art. For cover art always think of where the comics logo and details will go, a good rule of thumb is to have a space of 3.5 inches at the top with no primary art details.
I use to have to run all over to comic shops and order boards. We are all so lucky you can buy stuff online. Here are some links on amazon. When you click and buy via the links below you help WhiteFire comics it is win for us both…
